An endearing video of elephants planning what looks to be a “funeral” for a young elephant who has passed away has gone viral and sparked a strong emotional response on social media.
Thousands of people have seen the touching video that Indian Foreign Service forest ranger Parveen Kaswan shared on Twitter. An adult Indian elephant can be seen in the video coming out of a forest and onto a road, softly holding a juvenile elephant’s lifeless body with its trunk.
The adult elephant lays the small body down on the ground and watches over it until the other herd members arrive. Before long, the entire herd shows up, creating a line that looks like it belongs in a solemn procession.
Around the little carcass, mature and juvenile elephants congregate in a moving demonstration of solidarity. Observers are captivated by the touching image as the herd stands as a solemn assembly and tenderly lifts the dead elephant and carries it into the forest.
The video garnered more than 12,000 “likes” and more than 5,000 retweets on social media. Commenters shared their intensely felt responses, and Devika, one user, thought about the potent message it sends: “This is heartbreaking. Humans can pick up a lot of knowledge from animals.”
Sumita Bhatt, another user, expressed her shock by commenting, “OMG!!! I’ve never seen a video like this before. Extremely moving.” According to Mohan Alembath, who also found the film to be incredibly poignant, “elephants’ capacity for complex emotions like grief is truly remarkable.”
Elephants are among the many creatures that have been seen exhibiting signs of grieving, while scientists caution against ascribed human-like “grief” to animals. They occasionally participate in what seem to be “funeral” ceremonies and have been known to show a strong interest in the bones of their deceased.
As per the Smithsonian magazine, elephants have been seen to regularly pass by the carcasses of deceased herd members, smelling and touching the remains. These actions show sympathy or respect for the deceased.
A similar act of grief was seen by the globe last year when a female killer whale traveled through Canadian seas with her dead baby on her back for over two weeks before releasing it.
Mourning behaviors have also been observed in chimpanzees. A small group of captive chimpanzees tended to a fallen comrade’s body, cleaned her fur, and for several days refused to go near the site of her death.
Researchers studying primates in Zambia observed a mother chimpanzee cleaning her dead son’s teeth with a piece of dried grass, indicating that social ties endure beyond death.
There have been reports of other animals, including magpies, burying their dead beneath patches of grass. A fascinating occurrence had a little child filming peccaries, which are wild pig-like animals that live in the United States. The animals were seen engaging in rituals of grief, including visiting and resting next to a deceased family member on multiple occasions.
These moving instances highlight the beauty of nature’s many emotional and heartwarming moments, demonstrating the extraordinary depth of feeling and social connection that extends into the animal realm.
